Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Optical fibers are widely used in fiber-optic communications to permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths than other forms of communication. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss and are also immune to electromagnetic interference. It is often necessary to align an optical fiber with another optical fiber, or with an optoelectronic device such as a light-emitting diode, a laser diode, a sensor, an optical router, or a modulator. Optimal alignment of optoelectronic devices with optical fibers is important for effective coupling to achieve desired transmission effects from the optical fiber to the optoelectronic devices.
There are some constraints on optical alignment of active optoelectronic devices in order to make effective optical interconnects. Effective light coupling between an optical fiber and an emitter and/or receiver may require very precise alignment. Current alignment techniques may be costly and time consuming. For example, some alignment techniques involve using multi-axis translation stages to adjust the optoelectronic devices while receiving active feedback from the optoelectronic devices, which is an expensive and inefficient technique. An additional challenge involves a mode mismatch between laser diode output powers and optical fibers, which can lead to significant power losses between fibers and target optoelectronic devices when connected.